Travel Guide: Mt. Mariveles — Tarak Ridge’s Sweet Assault

We’ve been wanting to hike Mt. Mariveles popularly, know as Tarak Ridge, since early 2016, it is when I was new to hiking. Then early this year, we decided to celebrate our friend’s birthday to this mountain.

We started our trek at around 4AM. Trek up until papaya river is just a smooth rolling terrain, so everyone of us still manage to have a consistent pace. We passed by the house of Nanay Cording, we registered and gave her some supplies and then we proceed trekking to Papaya River. There are different trails that are going to the summit, but we took the normal trail most hikers are following.

After almost two hours of trekking in the dark, we reached the Papaya River. There are still campers sleeping when we got there so I advised my team to tone down their voices. We took a nice rest before we commence the assault going to ridge, then to the summit.

Starting from Papaya River, it was a gradual assault then after few minutes of hiking up, it became a direct assault that is almost 90 degree angle the will require you to hold on to the roots and push yourself to be able to move forward (or upward). It was almost an hour ascent till we reach the ridge that also serves as a camp site for most hikers. At the ridge, you will see an amazing view of Bataan and its neighboring island like Corregidor.

We continued our hike going to the summit after a few minutes of rest. It was almost a 30 minute assault before we reached the summit. We took time to appreciate nature before we descend our way back to Papaya River to have our lunch and to swim a little.